Some cultures never gave up totally in the beliefs of magic and true scientist would just treat this as another form of science subject to different unknown laws.
Do you have new 'laws' for this magic and is it subject to human belief and history or just are you making it up as you go along? can anyone pull anything from a mythology or is there guiding principals that work all over the world?
To make sure I (we?) don't take you in a direction you don't want to go, can you give a little more on the principles/protocols you want to follow?
Actually, I typed up something, but I wasn't sure anyone would be interested so I let it rest. Here is the overview. Again, this is really really generic and about a tenth of the notes that went into it. In addition, this is more than the role-players really know. They, like most of the characters that may come from this in that they had to muddle along. Hell, one of them had been dabbling in magic for years of story-time but just recently learned to harness it with circles. This below is what I wrote up. If there are more questions, let me know please.
Okay... I put together a more in depth overview, but I don't want you guys to have to study for an exam or anything since you are helping me. I'll post this overview here. If you want the other, more in depth one, I'll post it elsewhere on the web and give you all a link, since I think its too long for this forums posts.
The basics are broken down into Magic, the Walker, The Journeymen.
Magic
Magic is much like the dverse, but without the training. People need training, but it doesn't really exist yet. That said, there is a lot of free flowing power right now. When people do magic, they use their own power to get it done, but leverage external forces that correspond to the threads of power flowing through all things. These threads are broken into greater threads (the five elements) and lesser threads which are combinations or pieces of these elements. All magic users (maybe .1 percent of the people alive have this capability, so in America, that's 300,000 or lots and lots) have affinity to one type of thread or another, or to multiple threads.
Some of the lesser threads are the life thread, specific storm threads (like the nor'easter, el nino, etc). and the color blue, though no one knows why blue gets its own. The greater threads can do everything a lesser thread can do, but lesser threads often give finer control. By drawing power from these threads, accessible in anything that has pieces of them, the magic user can work much greater magics, otherwise they draw on their own life force, making themselves tired, and with repeated self-use of magic, aging themselves faster. Conversely, using magic via the threads causes more magical energy to flow through users and slows their aging, though can still make them tired.
The use of focuses and circles help, but without knowing how to make those, they will have to stumble along. Those sent to train them are, at best, a little better than they are and for them, magic has always been a personal thing.
Magical creatures are extemely uncommon and restricted to things like vampires, werewolves, some fey, and the like. Mostly those things that fed off of life survived, and not those things MADE of magic. Fey are immortal, but the most powerful (ie the ones that need the most magic to survive) would have faded or left to the Far Reaches. Give the group some ideas, and if it sounds plausible, cool. I don't want to fetter creativity.
The Near and Far Reaches are the underlying world. They are shaped by emotion and belief, but are extremely difficult to get to. I don't expect that more than a handful would be able to get into them or out. The Near Reaches were also bound when Magic was bound, and many of their populations moved to the Far Reaches. The Fey lands essentially died as belief in them faded, and most the Fey created homes in the Far Reaches. Over time, they may come back, but that will be slow and probably not significant in the scope of this.
The Walker
The Walker, also well known as the Negotiator, less well known as the Betrayer, was a Journeyman of extreme, knocking down buildings and killing with a look, power. He was very calm in demeanor, could be cruel very easily, but could also be kind to those around him. He ruled with an iron fist, gloved in down.
He took control of the earth using his Dragons and made statements clear when he destroyed the only nation to refuse servitude to him by having those dragons hunt down all not running to the nearest neighboring countries. That was Switzerland.
He built an organization of followers, both those coerced and those who were loyal, and used them to run things he could not be there for. He read the evil overlord list. He encouraged kindness when violence was unnecessary, but acted succinctly with little concern for life when it was.
Most didn't understand his motivations, and that's still the case.
When magic came back, the Walker was still in command and it mostly worked against him. Previously, all use of magic was tracked down by Dragons and dealt with, but with so much, that became impossible. Many died in the initial return of magic and riots that followed a few days later. Less than a week after magic came back, the Walker disappeared and was presumed to have been killed.
Many governments fell in revolution against the Walkers remaining organization, and many more fell because newly empowered could fight. The major powers are still there, but many smaller nations have crumbled and economic shock has all but destroyed the international foundations of business. The world is essentially in a Great Depression and suffering from thousands of homebread insurgencies at the same time, with magic making everything more lively.
The details are where you come in.
The Journeymen
For the most part, the Journeymen won't come into this. Suffice it to say there are four races of Journeymen, including the Earth Humans, The Cybermen, The Angels (Elys) and the Demons (Abad). The Angels and the Demons have been fighting a war by proxy on Earth for millenia, but they are not attached to either God or the Devil. The nature of God and the Devil are still a matter for theology and religion and not a matter of public record.
During Walker's reign, these forces were prevented access to Earth by virtue of an active, continuous pogrom. They have generally lost their hold, and even with Walker gone, are slow to come back.
Really, this is focusing on the effects of humans on Earth now that magic is back and civilization is holding on by bare threads.
There are twelve other worlds out there, but only Journeymen of the four races mentioned can travel between them. I'd rather not have a slew of journeymen, because, by their nature, their focus becomes diluted away from just Earth's problems.
Um... that's it. If we need more details to work out the magic or the history, that's welcome too. Remember that some things may already be established. This was the work on an hour (both this and the longer version) to record details that had been preplanned and had sort of cropped up during role-playing.
One more note, this is for consumption by my role-players only. I don't think I'll write this story down ever and try to publish, but if I do, I'll try to keep from stealing any of your ideas for it.
